Hi, does anyone know what I can use to wipe a hard drive totally clean, so it can never be restored or unerased? Thanks
Chris
Chris
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Erasing a hard drive?
- Thread starter chrisregentb
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If it's your startup volume than you will have to put in your Tiger (or system resore) Disc, restart from the Disc (hold down the option key) and select the disc when it comes up) On the installer go to utilities>disc utility (somewhere in the menu bars) select the drive you want to erase, and click on it, then click on the erase tab, enter in your options and then click erase.
If it's an external drive, than simply go to Applications>Utilities>Diask Utility, click on the drive in the left-hand list, go to the erase tab, enter in the detainls (name ec) and click erase.
You obviously can't erase the disk that OS X has booted from, which is why you will need to start-up from the installer CD or summit.
Note: There are advanced options too, like Zeroing all data on the drive first, or writing over the drive numerous times to facilitate security.
If it's an external drive, than simply go to Applications>Utilities>Diask Utility, click on the drive in the left-hand list, go to the erase tab, enter in the detainls (name ec) and click erase.
You obviously can't erase the disk that OS X has booted from, which is why you will need to start-up from the installer CD or summit.
Note: There are advanced options too, like Zeroing all data on the drive first, or writing over the drive numerous times to facilitate security.
Boot up from your system disc and load up disk utility within it.
Select the drive you want to wipe, go to the "erase" tab, and click on the "security options" buton. Choose an 8-way random write, or 35 if you've got a Tiger disc. Give the drive a name and erase it.
On my iMac G5 I didn't have much luck, the setup crashed about half-way on an 8-way random write (just froze up - had no other problems on the iMac in normal use) but Tiger seems much better.
Not only do you get quick format, zeroing the drive, and 8-way random write, there's now an option to write 35 times onto a disk. This will make data totally unrecoverable.
I don't have any sensitive information on my Powerbook (didn't have any on the iMac for that matter) but I was just curious to see how well it worked, and how long it'd take, so I started a full 35x write on the internal 100gb drive last night, and it looks like it's going to take about 35 hours total. (9 hours left)
Takes a while, but it'll make sure no-one will get access to your data.
Select the drive you want to wipe, go to the "erase" tab, and click on the "security options" buton. Choose an 8-way random write, or 35 if you've got a Tiger disc. Give the drive a name and erase it.
On my iMac G5 I didn't have much luck, the setup crashed about half-way on an 8-way random write (just froze up - had no other problems on the iMac in normal use) but Tiger seems much better.
Not only do you get quick format, zeroing the drive, and 8-way random write, there's now an option to write 35 times onto a disk. This will make data totally unrecoverable.
I don't have any sensitive information on my Powerbook (didn't have any on the iMac for that matter) but I was just curious to see how well it worked, and how long it'd take, so I started a full 35x write on the internal 100gb drive last night, and it looks like it's going to take about 35 hours total. (9 hours left)
Takes a while, but it'll make sure no-one will get access to your data.